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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183940">Indelible</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resonant/pseuds/Resonant'>Resonant</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aliens Made Them Do It, Amnesia, Don't copy to another site, Dubious Consent, First Time, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Romance, Second Time, because aliens, goes au after reichenbach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:21:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183940</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resonant/pseuds/Resonant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They flashed a bright light in John's eyes when it was over, just like in the movies.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/John Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>185</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Indelible</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not a lot of plot here, but this was initially written before Series 3 aired, and it takes place in a nebulously AU universe in which the solution to The Reichenbach Fall was actually, you know, good. </p><p>Beta thanks to Fox and DesireeArmfeldt.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They flashed a bright light in John's eyes when it was over, just like in the movies. They asked for his consent first. Under other circumstances, it might have made him laugh.</p><p>He expected it to wipe their memories, and was thinking that the ... guests ... would have done better to wait until he and Sherlock had got their clothes back on, or, better yet, not to involve the likes of Sherlock Holmes at all. But they'd shown pretty clearly that they weren't interested in John's opinion.</p><p>What the white light actually did was to do for memories what morphine did for pain. It was all still there -- the surprised noise Sherlock made when their lips touched for the first time, the hungry noise he was making twenty minutes later, the way he couldn't meet John's gaze after. It was all still there, but John didn't care very much. There was Sherlock's bare back, with a few red scratches; it was interesting the way art was interesting. There was the handkerchief Sherlock had given him, not quite enough to get all the stickiness off his belly and inner thighs but enough that he could get his trousers back on, and there was Sherlock’s eyeroll when John offered it back. </p><p>The part of him that was screaming how unspeakably awful all this was didn't scream very loudly any more. He wanted a cup of tea, and he suspected that what had gone off in the refrigerator was the leftover hot-and-sour and not the cheese after all, and before he diagnosed mastitis on this morning’s patient he ought to have considered clothing-related dermatitis, and all of that was far more important than aliens, or his arse being sore, or knowing what Sherlock looked like when he came.</p><p>"Well." Sherlock had his shirt in both hands. He frowned at it, picked off a piece of something, and put his arm into it. “<em>That</em> was a rewarding use of my time.”</p><p>John looked at him as he stood there with his dark-blue shirt open to frame his bare chest. There had been an intensity between them from the hour they met. Sherlock had to be as grateful as he was that it was gone now.</p><p>How many times had he wished they could be free of the awareness that made every glance heavy and every accidental touch electric? He remembered how it had felt when they met, how he hadn’t been able to see Sherlock's hands or hear his voice without a jolt of arousal, or to look his way without surprising a hot stare. </p><p>It wouldn't have been so bad with someone normal. They'd have had some foolish, ill-advised sex, which might or might not have led to foolish, ill-advised romance, which might or might not have crashed and burned and left them both miserable. Life was full of choices like that. But Sherlock even resented the necessity of eating and sleeping. It had been obvious he was savagely unhappy to find himself with a libido, and he had responded with an indiscriminate wrath that should not have been as sexy as it was. </p><p>Their flashing light had wiped all that away along with the past hour, leaving Sherlock to be nothing but his odd flatmate. Handsome, of course, but like something made for visual enjoyment. He slanted John an unreadable glance, and John saw flaws in his good looks that he'd never noticed before: darkness under his eyes and lines around them, as if he were tired and longing for home.</p><p>John, too. "Come on," he said gently. "Been a long day. Time for a good night's sleep."</p><p>Next day John could hardly remember what was supposed to be the issue. He'd turned off his phone while he was working his shift at clinic, and Sherlock had got shirty about it, and aliens had demanded that they have sex, and something animal or otherwise had pissed on their front steps, but Mrs. Hudson had come out and dumped a bucket of water on it, so a reasonably good day all in all, in spite of everything. Whatever it was, it couldn't be too important.</p><p>Sherlock came home, nodded without stopping to speak, and loped off to his room -- John, who was still a little sore, envied him that easy stride -- and John ate another samosa and settled in to work on his blog. <em>Aliens with eyes in their hair demanded that I have sex with my flatmate yesterday,</em> he typed, and then backspaced over it, because it wasn't very interesting, was it? Better to focus on Sherlock's analysis of carpet fibers; that was something you didn't hear about every day.  </p><p>About the time he hit Post and went back to the kitchen for more kheer, Sherlock sidled in again. "If you'd like some dinner, there's ..." but he broke off, because there really wasn’t.</p><p>Sherlock made a dismissive noise at the fridge and turned jerkily to unearth the kettle from behind a pile of threadbare fishermen’s caps. He was rubbing at the side of his neck as though it itched. Not looking at John. Avoiding looking at John. Nervous. Nervous? Right, the two of them had been involved in something embarrassing yesterday, hadn't they? Maybe Sherlock's trousers had fallen down or something. John was a doctor; he knew how to handle embarrassed people. "Whatever it is, it's fine, Sherlock. There's a bottle of Kingfisher left -- do you want it?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>John stopped with the fridge door half-shut. "You ... right." And so he opened it again to get Sherlock the beer, and Sherlock cracked it and grimly drank about half of it at a swallow. He cupped his hand over his neck again, grimacing.</p><p>"What is it?" John said, and then, "Sherlock," in the tone he sometimes used to get patients to stop being polite and say what they came to say. If Sherlock hadn’t wanted to tell him, he needn’t have come into the kitchen at all. </p><p>And in fact Sherlock almost seemed relieved, though he was still radiating discomfort from every inch of his unbending frame. "You, ah, you left a -- a mark on me. Yesterday."</p><p>Oh, right, aliens had forced them to have sex; he'd almost forgotten. It must have been better than you might expect if he'd forgotten his manners that badly. </p><p>Sherlock was wearing a dress shirt. John eyed what little of his neck was visible above the collar. "That was ... rude of me. Sorry."</p><p>"No, no, I -- you were under a certain amount of duress, so it's not surprising."</p><p>His face was pink, and he was still not quite making eye contact, and John had a thought that made him catch his breath: Was it possible that this was Sherlock's first lovebite ever? Sad, then, that he couldn't remember giving it to him, the taste of his skin or the noises he might have made.</p><p>What else had Sherlock done for the first time yesterday that John couldn't remember today?</p><p>"Are you in pain?" he said gently.</p><p>"No, of course not; it's very shallow, and though the human mouth is a haven for bacteria, for some reason it's generally agreed that it's uncommon for such ... blemishes to become infected." That sounded like the old Sherlock, but he was still looking down at his hands around the bottle. "It's only -- if something touches it --" He raised his hand toward the side of his neck. "It ought to be mildly painful, if anything. But --"</p><p>He shifted, and John understood, suddenly. "It turns you on."</p><p>Sherlock went even redder. "I -- yes." He didn't touch it again, but his hand rose and fell as if he were stopping himself.</p><p>"Can I see it?" John's voice sounded odd to his own ears.</p><p>Sherlock set the empty bottle down and pulled the collar aside, and there it was, a red smudge -- smooth; at least it wasn't deep enough to bleed -- just in the hollow between Sherlock's collarbone and his neck, like a galaxy in a National Geographic photo all diagonal and fuzzy.</p><p>Fucking hell. The mark of John's mouth.</p><p>He put his fingers on it, and Sherlock pulled a breath in through his teeth.</p><p>"Hurts?"</p><p>"No -- it -- no."</p><p>His pulse kicked up, and he bent forward and brushed his lips over it. "We weren't going to do this."</p><p>"No," Sherlock said. His voice was as hoarse as if he'd already been shouting. "No, there was a clear tacit agreement not to do this."</p><p>They were standing so close that John could feel Sherlock's chest expand with every inhale. "I expect we had a very good reason."</p><p>Sherlock bent his head, pressing his face against John's forehead, and took a breath, as though he were smelling John's hair. "You were very angry with me."</p><p>John nodded. He was having difficulty keeping his eyes open, so he shut them. He let his weight shift forward until he was openly leaning on the long warm stretch of Sherlock's body. "For the ..." He trailed off.</p><p>"Thing. The thing I did."</p><p>"When you were dead," John murmured, and Sherlock's neck was centimeters from his mouth. Sherlock inhaled when he kissed it. "You were dead, and you didn't tell me, and I was angry that I'd never got to do this." He darted his tongue out. Sherlock's skin was faintly salty. The taste of it made him need to press closer.</p><p>"That -- there's a logical flaw in there somewhere," Sherlock said. </p><p>"Mm," John agreed, kissing his collarbone and undoing a shirt button.</p><p>"And I don't do this." Sherlock shivered as John undid another button, tipping his head back. "I wasn't going to do this because I don't do this. <em>Why</em> don't I do this?"</p><p>"Pure mind," John said, "unmuddied by transient shifts in brain chemistry." It had the feel of a quote, something he'd heard before. </p><p>"What rot," said Sherlock. </p><p>John nodded against the skin of Sherlock's upper chest, and then he stiffened, because Sherlock's last statement had got through the fog in his mind. </p><p>"No, no, why are you stopping?"</p><p>John raised his chin, with difficulty, to look Sherlock in the face. "You don't do this," he repeated. "You'd ... never done this?"</p><p>Sherlock’s gaze went to his fingers, which were brushing across the hair at John's temple. He didn’t answer. </p><p>"Oh, jesus." John closed his eyes. "You'd never -- and they made you --"</p><p>"I loved it," Sherlock said, all in a rush.</p><p>"How can you know that?"</p><p>His lower lip dented inwards, hesitating. “My body -- wants your body close. It trusts your body. It remembers."</p><p>John looked at him, mussed, flushed, strangely boyish, and abruptly he was furious. "They stole it. It was the first time for you, and those <em>monsters</em> --"</p><p>Sherlock stilled his face in both hands, all big-eyed intensity. "Give it back to me, then."</p><p>They nearly fell over each other trying to get to John's bedroom, hitting the bed fully dressed in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs, and the twinge in his arse made John remember that he wasn't at all outfitted to give Sherlock what they must have had before. He had condoms, of course, but lubricant was something he didn't keep a supply of, for reasons that now seemed stupid to him. Because he preferred going to bed with women he hardly knew? Because he rarely trusted any man enough to lie down for him? -- none of it made any <em>sense</em>, not with Sherlock panting incomprehensible half-sentences into his neck and trying to work his shirt off his shoulders without removing the jumper first. </p><p>John wrestled free just long enough to throw both garments off, shoving Sherlock's opened shirt off his shoulders for good measure.</p><p>Under Sherlock's mouth and hands, John's skin proved to be sensitive in places he hadn't been aware of -- his upper arms, a spot halfway down the center of his back. Maybe they'd discovered them before, too, before the aliens made them forget. Maybe, locked away in the dark spaces of his own brain, there were places he could put his fingertips and make Sherlock shudder or moan. <em>Damn</em> them and their rubbery expressionless faces.</p><p>He'd just have to work it all out again. </p><p>Sherlock touching John was avid and curious and devastatingly observant. No surprises there. But Sherlock being touched was an unfamiliar creature. The most innocent touches made him writhe under John's hands, and more focused caresses made him all but stop breathing. John wanted him naked like his next breath. </p><p>He went to work on Sherlock's trousers, which of course were close-fitting and complicated. When he worked the hook loose, everything stopped for a long moment, and Sherlock lay panting, cheeks red, for several breaths before saying, "Yes, of course." John drew down trousers and pants with a hand that wanted to shake. </p><p>Sherlock, naked. Sherlock's cock, spilling a shiny spot onto his heaving belly. Sherlock, there for him to touch. </p><p>When he took Sherlock's cock in his hand, Sherlock pitched up to his elbows and bent his head. He watched fiercely through one exploratory stroke, and then he said, “Not <em>yet</em>,” and fell back, coming. </p><p>John watched it out to the very last shiver -- flushed cheeks, spattered belly, half-lidded eyes. <em>Sherlock.</em> This was what he'd been turning down all these months, telling himself it would be more trouble than it was worth. This was what he'd been aching for. This was what he'd signed away without a second thought. </p><p>Sherlock opened his eyes, all at once going from complete sexual exhaustion to a chin-up haughtiness that promised a blistering retort if John dared to say a word on the subject of stamina. John grinned at him, standing to strip out of the rest of his clothes, and watched his face soften out of pride, and through shared humor, and then to a narrow-eyed sharpness on John's nudity.</p><p>John wasn't a beauty like Sherlock, but he was built for endurance, and in action he knew he didn't disappoint. He knelt over Sherlock's reclining body, caging him in hands and knees, and Sherlock raised his face, straining up for the kiss, begging for it with his posture and the upward tilt of his beautiful mouth.</p><p>"Fuck," John said, settling down on him. "I want <em>everything</em> out of you."</p><p>"Yes," Sherlock hissed, stretching his neck. His body was hot and open, pleading with every move. John rutted against his hip, over and over, so hot for him it made him lightheaded. "Come on," Sherlock growled.</p><p>When John came, his mouth came to rest right on the mark. </p><p>After, he was almost afraid to raise his head, remembering the white light and what it had taken away.</p><p>"It was this moment that I dreaded," Sherlock said softly.  When John would have looked at him, he felt a hand pressing his head back down. "The mess and the indignity once the urgency was past. The consciousness of all the promises implied in this act, and the awareness that I was going to begin breaking them immediately. Disappointing you is inevitable, John. It's merely a question of time." </p><p>He turned his head, and John followed his gaze and went cold. There the creatures stood, the color of wet pavement, with that unnatural expressionless stillness.</p><p>Sherlock moved, heedless of his nakedness, to put his body between them and John.</p><p>For a long moment, nothing happened that he could see, but the muscle tension he could feel in Sherlock's body suggested something complicated. Then Sherlock shook all over like an irritable dog, and he and the creatures all turned to look at John. </p><p>The creatures were standing still like things that could never have been alive, and Sherlock was sitting still like the gap between inhaling and exhaling, and all of them waited to know what John would choose. </p><p>Sherlock had made the suggestion, last time. The memory of it swam back up from wherever it had been hiding. The embarrassment, and then the light, and then the relief. Sherlock’s averted grimace, his tense stillness, and how the meaning had faded out of them until there was only a face and a body. </p><p>He looked at Sherlock now, still putting his body protectively in front of John's, and then back at the aliens. "Are you joking? You can't have it. I want every second of it."</p><p>Sherlock turned to him, incredulous. "John," he said. "Think carefully. You could be free. You know what I am."</p><p>John didn’t know how to say it. He touched the pink mark of his mouth on Sherlock's neck, watching his eyelids droop. "I know what <em>we</em> are."</p><p>One corner of Sherlock's mouth softened. John could kiss it now, and so he did, slow and soft. Sherlock kissed like someone cautiously holding back. John looked forward to what it would be like when he let it all go. </p><p>When they parted, John's eyes went to the empty corner of the bedroom, looking for -- what was it? There wouldn't have been anyone in his bedroom, for christ's sake. Not when he was in here naked with Sherlock. <em>Finally.</em></p><p>Sherlock followed his glance. </p><p>"I have the oddest feeling that there ought to be someone there. And that there's something I ought to …” He lost the rest against the soft skin behind Sherlock’s ear. Why was he trying to talk when it was so lovely to lie pressed together like this, getting familiar with Sherlock's scars and freckles, waiting to be ready for another round, reveling in his good luck? One of John's favorite things. Waste of time at a moment like this, talking. </p><p>“We weren’t going to do this.” Sherlock sounded like a tipsy man trying to make himself sober by force of will. “What made us change our minds about not doing this?” </p><p>John tried a lick in the same spot, and then a gentle bite, and then a bite that was a little less gentle. “Sound decision. Well done us.” But Sherlock was pulling back to frown down at him. “Not as though we were victims of some sort of, of mind control, right? Men from Mars? We just decided we didn’t like that choice.” John ran his fingertip upward over the wrinkle between Sherlock’s brows.</p><p>Sherlock’s eyes fell shut, slowly. “All right, then. Let’s try a different one.”</p>
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